EDIT The DK Micro is listed as the world's smallest playable DK cab in the 2012 Guiness Book of world records Gaming edition, it's on the DK page unfortunately no pictures but it's still fun to be included

Well I've been working on this for a while. I wanted to make a tiny tiny working DK cab that was very playable, battery powered, had real controls, and ran vertical MAME gamesI've seen one smaller MAME cab built out of a Ipod nano but the nano was sticking out of the side and the controls on the Nano.. Well... Suck, so I'm not counting that I was really inspired by patrickl's Pocket Galaga(approx 11" tall)But couldn't see building one for only one game, plus I wanted to make it even smaller, 1/8 scale to be exact(approx 8.25" tall) and even though that doesn't sound that small it is as that is a linear scale, and by volume it is 512 times smaller than an actual DK CabSo on to the good stuff I've been doing research on the many handheld Systems out there now that do a decent job running MAME, and the two I settled on that had the right screen size(exactly 1/8 scale to a 19" arcade monitor) were the Dingoo A320 and The GP2X Wiz, so I picked up one of each and The Wiz ended up being a far better machine, OLED Screen and faster processor, so I decided to use that for the guts, the other issue was finding a small enough joystick that worked well, and I had a couple of options there and found one that worked Quite well, but more on that in the build details, to comeI took a bunch of Progress Pics and I'll post them here later, just wanted to get some Pics up cause I was so exited to see it all finished upOh yeah, it has a lit marquee and tinted glass, too!

These are the coin door parts and marquee/bezel retainers before painting, all made from model maker's styrene sheet and profilesI als used styrene strips with the edges rounded(by carefully sanding) to simulate the T-molding

Here is the coin door painted and the pinheads I cut and glued in to use as rivitsI did some test paint on scrap to practice how to get the textured look to the paint, basically I used a can of semi-flat spray paint and would, do pretty heavy coats to get a subtle orange peel effect that looks a lot like real coin door

Marquee/Bezel retainers painted and coated with a satin clear coat, and the bottom of the CP panel with faux speaker grill, I made indentations then filled the indents with black paint to get the lines

these are all CP controls from the front and the back and with a regular button for scaleI installed the larger buttons below the artwork so the silver rim wouldn't be seen, I found it a little distracting

This is the back/monitor/computer support thingy and the top painted and clear coated

Here is the back/monitor/computer support thingy with everything installed

And here it is running with the marquee light lit!!!you can see the 15pin connector there in the corner that goes to the control panel

I used a usb LED light like this I got from ebay for like $4 and decased it and literally cut the last 1/3 of the board off LED's and all so it would fit inside the marquee are, and wired it to a 3.7v lead on the wiz board

here are my two first plexi bezels, the clear was too light and the smoked was too dark so I ended up putting the lightest car window tinting stuff on the back side of the clear one and it was perfect, unfortunately I didn't take any pics of that

I've seen one smaller MAME cab built out of a Ipod nano but the nano was sticking out of the side and the controls on the Nano.. Well... Suck, so I'm not counting that

Dude... the last thing you need to worry about is how this compares to something else that might 'technically' be smaller. This is a work of art. I own a full size Donkey Kong cabinet, and seeing your 'mini' is just amazing. Your attention to detail is commendable.

I looked at the first picture and said "Wow! That is a CLEAN build!" When I looked at the second pic, I had my mind blown. This is just plain cool on so many levels. AMAZING!!!

Bender! In a word, AWESOME! I thought that I was going small with my 50 centimeter projects, but you did me one better. How responsive are the joysticks and buttons? How did you make the replica coin door? Sweet attention to detail. Please don't tell me you routed the speaker grill. Build Pics please!

Bender - are you freaking kidding me? Ridiculous job. I am VERY curious to see build pics. So many questions... How the crap did you make the coin door? How thin are the side panels? How did you find t-molding to fit? How long did this take? How did you interface the handheld to the joystick and buttons? My head is going to explode.

@Jigenjuke and HatTrick77, I'm sorry to say I didn't route those out, the smallest router bit I could find was 1/16, not small enough, so I scored indentations into the wood and then painted them in, the sound comes out from just below where that fake speaker grill is

@NipRing, just to funny, plus bonus points for getting an obscure futurama references in there

@Yvan, thanks, and yeah I got a few pics and details to share, can't wait to see that project of yours!

@ RandyT, I think your right any smaller wouldn't be comfortable to play, even this isn't something you'd want to play for hours at a time, OK well maybe I would

@LeedsFan, your wish is my command

@dfmaverick, I've got a horizontal one on the drawing board, only issue is the ribbon cable from the screen is really short and I have to rotate it 90º so I have to overcome that, I'll figure something out tough

@Leapinlew, well skintube, you know there's nothing that can't be made better or smaller with a little bending

@extendedplayarcade, it is too bad it wasn't done in time, that would have been cool!

Hey Bender, do you have the plans you used to build this cab? I would like to build my daughter a 1/2 scale version, so if you have all the measurements from the full cab, I would be greatful to get them from you.

Hey Bender, do you have the plans you used to build this cab? I would like to build my daughter a 1/2 scale version, so if you have all the measurements from the full cab, I would be greatful to get them from you.

i built a fullsize replica about 8 years ago, but i love this one, would fit nice on my desk at work.

you gonna share the plans with us?

please

yeah, she's sitting right here on my desk next to me now

I used 3/16 (5mm) MDF for most of the construction, as for plans I took the jackobud DK plans and scaled them down to 1/8 scale which is 12.5% of the original, I printed them out (nice thing about this project everything easily fits on a standard sheet of paper) lightly spray-mounted it to 1/2 MDF and cut out the template for the side panelsI do remember making all the inside widths 3" so everything that fit between the 2 large side panels were exactly the sameI did make some minor adjustments as I went, but basically I laid everything down right on the printouts to size them upFoam-board is usually 3/16th s also so I made a full mock up of that first, in a couple hours with just an x-acto and hot glue (actually stuck the un-hacked wiz right in there to see what the screen would look like)I also used a bit of modle-makers' styrene for various parts like the t-molding, marquee retainers, coin door, etc., and it was all put together with CA glue for the construction and hot glue for the electronic bits (so I could get them apart)I did make a special back section to house the Wiz board/screen that is screwed in so it's removable, look for that in the videos soon